


and i wonder if i’m in your head (still)

by Thegaygumballmachine



Series: smoke and mirrors [1]
Category: The Morning Show (TV 2019)
Genre: Alcohol Mentions, F/F, MENTIONS OF MITCH but he isn’t here bc if i wrote him i think i would cry, alex levy is one broken bitch, alt history where these two actually tried to get together sometimes, chip charlie chip whatever ur fucking name is, instead of just talked about being married and in love and holding hands all the fucking time, some kissy moments. mostly angst, uhhh mentions of sex?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25825222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thegaygumballmachine/pseuds/Thegaygumballmachine
Summary: “okay,” says bradley, processing. “i am not gonna sleep with you right now.”spoilers through the end of season one.
Relationships: Bradley Jackson/Alex Levy
Series: smoke and mirrors [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1873852
Comments: 9
Kudos: 34





	1. rose colored plexiglass

**Author's Note:**

> title from promises by EXES. unbeta’d and mildly edited so all mistakes are mine. also, i neglect to use any capital letters in this. my b.
> 
> thanks to stella for turning me onto yet another set of anchor lesbians. they’re clearly what we deserve.
> 
> there are some plans in the works to turn this into a somewhat altered canon series. if you’re interested in that, drop a comment.

she _fucking_ _hates this._

so many things about it are uncomfortable: the constant sirens, the gnawing heat at one in the morning, the way her throat closes up every time she goes to speak from smoke and stress and this persistent fear in the back of her mind that one thing is eventually just going to be too much and she’s going to drop dead on set instead of having a crying fit.

(it’s mostly the idea that she has to apologize, and specifically that she has to apologize to _bradley_ , because she was stupid and awful and kind of grieving a little and bradley held her hair back while she… well. anyway.)

it’s short. that’s by design. she physically can’t stand there in the unnatural ass backwards heat and wax poetic about the show, how bradley doesn’t deserve what she’s getting, how it feels like a death in the family, what happened to mitch. she can’t do that. not sober, anyway, and never to bradley. 

so it comes out, the divorce; it’s sort of insane to say, to confirm like that in this space. bradley watches her with kind southern eyes, and in that alex can’t tell if the kindness is real or just polite, and it drives her absolutely crazy for a beat or two until:

“is there anything i can do?”

… _is there?_

alex considers this, briefly. a half-formed ‘no’ stutters out of her as she does, but that’s a gut instinct and they both know it. she looks at bradley, really looks at her, sees a marked lack of judgement and an unfair gloss to her hair and wonders about what could happen between them if things were very, very different. 

“actually,” she says, “i’d really just love to have someone to drink with, if you-”

“yeah,” says bradley, cuts across her with a smile that’s roughly two parts understanding and one part relief. “i have time. come on in.”

——

they don’t get drunk. 

( _alex_ doesn’t get drunk: she doesn’t do that much at all anymore, not unless she’s alone and her doors are locked and her phone isn’t anywhere in sight. something deep down won’t let her take that particular risk for reasons she refuses to examine.

she doesn’t actually know what drunk bradley looks like in the first place.)

it’s two drinks: white wine and then, because chardonnay is almost always stupidly inadequate in alex’s estimation, the bottle of jack daniels bradley hid behind her suitcase. enough for a buzz, this pleasant, electric thrumming beneath her fingertips, but not enough to forget herself in any measurable way. 

bradley watches her with careful eyes and she resigns herself to that, to being looked at and sympathized with in new and exciting ways as _america’s divorcée._

“you can talk to me, you know,” says bradley. it’s quiet but not tentative, emboldened by the space between them. alex stares into the vanity mirror and tries not to think about that. 

“i know,” says alex. “i wouldn’t be here if i thought i couldn’t.”

she fixes her hair and sucks on her teeth and bradley drinks in her own time, unbothered but expectant. 

“i feel like i’m fucking losing it most of the time,” alex confesses. she meets her own gaze and sees too much there, feels vaguely like she’s suffocating for a few moments. 

(it’s the smoke.)

“shit,” says bradley, “i would too.”

“don’t you already?”

“well, sure. but i bet it’d be worse if i was in your position.”

considering this, alex laughs: brief, a little angry. 

“hey,” she muses, “america still loves me.” bradley raises her glass and it draws a tight smile, the kind she usually saves for moments when she doesn’t feel like she’ll last the hour and has to look pretty on tape anyway. 

“hard to believe america still has that much taste.”

——

it’s getting late, and then later. 

alex gets to actually talking slowly enough, stretched over that time. it might be the alcohol or it might just be how absolutely phenomenal bradley has been, continues to be as alex’s life comes apart around their show smiles. she gets into a headspace of reliving, making sense of a string of moments and she talks: about lizzy, about jason, about how tiring it is to always be the one that’s in the wrong.

“i mean- i, i’m a career woman,” she says, almost desperately. her hands move wildly with the thought and it’s a sure sign of her distress. “he knew that when he married me. he _knew_ that wouldn’t change. it’s _bullshit_.”

“it is,” says bradley, seems to think on it. 

they’re very close, suddenly. or maybe it isn’t sudden; maybe alex just isn’t paying attention to anything that isn’t her glass and the anger barely fueling her consciousness. 

(bradley in her trailer: warm light, soft blush, shadows in all the right places. old tiredness collecting around the eyes.)

“i don’t know… maybe it’s time for a divorce,” says alex, lowly. 

they look at each other; bradley drinks, alex fixates on the lipstick that comes away on her glass. she has _no idea_ what she’s doing, as is the running theme in her life lately. 

“whatever makes you happy,” says bradley. there’s an alien sincerity to it that comes across in a wash of blue and coral.

more silence. it feels like it ought to be uncomfortable and isn’t. to that end, alex forces herself to fidget, picks invisible lint off her shirt. thinks about bradley in green and the way studio lights bring out the red in her hair. 

“it’s hard,” bradley breathes. “it just is. that’s what we signed up for, and it’s- it’s _crazy,_ but if you’ve been doing it for as long as you have you’ve got it in your blood and you can’t… you’ll die if you stop, so you just… you just do the fucking news.”

alex feels electricity in her fingertips. two beats pass and bradley gathers herself, or tries to.

alex curses, takes bradley’s face into her hands and kisses her. there’s a swooping, tipsy feeling in her gut and she can’t quite tell if she’s dreaming or not but then bradley catches her bottom lip between her teeth and it’s so real she could cry. 

(she’s caught up in it; in the softness of bradley’s hair and the taste of her under the liquor and how deeply _responsive_ she is to even such a marginal amount of attention. it feels powerful, heady, like she’s finally in control of something and that something being bradley jackson for even five seconds is easily akin to a drug.

remembering endless segments on addiction in america and trying not to choke.)

“shit,” she whispers, thoughtless, when they come apart. “oh, holy shit.”

bradley stares at her. her face is flushed and she looks vaguely surprised, which alex can certainly understand considering she had no idea she was going to do that either.

_mitchmitchmitch bradley._

“okay,” says bradley, processing. “i am not gonna sleep with you right now.”

alex blinks, takes stock of herself. that’s good; that’s better. too much is changing already and if she’s honest with herself, she’ll jump at the chance to prove she can deal with _no_ in this particular situation.

“right,” she says, quietly. “right, yeah, of course.”

“you’re a _mess_ , alex.”

it’s gentle, not unkind, but honest in that way only bradley has the courage to be around her. still, it hits her in all the wrong ways. 

“okay, fuck. just a solid ‘no’ would’ve been _more_ than fine.”

“i’m a pusher,” says bradley, edged in sadness. alex is scrambling to get up, to pick up the pieces, and she just sighs and drinks and stares. the ice in the bottom of her glass hurts alex’s ears but there’s nothing she can do about that, or about this. 

alex gets her coat on and bradley considers her, tilts her head. 

“why me, by the way?”

“jesus, bradley, i have no goddamn idea.”

she does — they both do. it reflects in bradley’s eyes, the surety of that. she didn’t know this would happen tonight, but she knew ( _feared_ ) that it would happen eventually. 

“sure,” says bradley, quietly. 

( _not mitch._ )

alex gathers her pride and goes. 


	2. wasteland, baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi it's been a year or something and i'm really sorry about it but here. have a pile of nonsense. now with CAPITAL LETTERS!!! 
> 
> chip was in the studio at the end of the season in my HEART.
> 
> the smut alluded to in this chapter will be posted as a separate work bc i'd like to keep this at a t rating. comments feed the author and i finally finished this chapter off thanks to one i received last night so if u want more u know what to do.

It’s  _ after.  _ The television in Times Square that usually says  _ The Morning Show  _ is now running a Coca-Cola ad and everyone is losing their collective shit. Fred most of all, but she doesn’t really care about him anymore than she cares about the spider she killed when she woke up this morning.

“Hey,” says Chip. “Woah woah woah, hey.”

“I know,” she says. They’re walking and she’s tearing her earpiece out, holding her free hand up to keep him from shredding her. She doesn’t necessarily expect him to, but better to be safe than sorry. “I’ll pack up my shit and be out by noon. don’t even worry about it.”

“Alex,” he says, breathes it out like a relief, like she personally is about to cause him to go into cardiac arrest. Maybe she is. She sighs, slows her pace but never stops moving. The goal is to become a blur so no one can yell at her until she’s already gone.

“I know,” she says, quietly now. They’re at her dressing room,  _ Alex Levy  _ in bright bold cursive, and is that her anymore, really? “I’m gone, okay? Send any… any, uh, paperwork to my home address.”

It’s like drowning but in a good way. Flight and electricity and the barest avoidance of death, this kind of pain that doesn’t monumentally suck. She’s not so heavy on the metaphor unless she’s at least halfway tipsy and she quit altogether after that night, but it’s… this is right and she knows it’s right.

She puts her hand on his arm and smiles - shaky, terrified, still confident somehow. He breathes (his heart is fine) and stares at her with greyed out eyes and neither has the first idea what to do with the moment. 

“You’re insane,” he says, eventually. “You’re so crazy. Take care of yourself, please.”

“I’ll do my best,” she promises, and she knows she will, if only for Lizzy. 

\----

She wanders around the city for awhile because she can’t bear to go home. Just picks a direction and walks in it. She ends up on Broadway with a slice of pizza and sees the Wicked matinee on a whim. It’s not like she’s ever cried at something like that before but the ending makes her tear up a little for reasons she refuses to examine. It’s like that until the sun goes down, just finding things to occupy her time and forcing herself to do them. She has the money for whatever she wants and that keeps her busy until maybe six.

The penthouse is so empty. She wishes she could have wine - a ridiculous, expensive red wine to make the place feel just a little smaller. Instead she rummages around in the pantry for a minute or two and comes up with a packet of saltines, takes them out onto the balcony.

Times Square doesn’t have her face in it for the first time in years and she feels like she should want to cry over it but can’t. The shadow of Mitch is still sitting on her patio, reading the Wall Street Journal and reminding her of just how much worse it could be. Hers was an honorable discharge; he’ll never work again, could go to jail. She doesn’t know all the logistics but a reasonable link, if circumstantial, could be made between him and a dead body as of this morning.

“Hey, it’s Bradley,” says the intercom. Her voice crackles and sputters and it’s actually really good that she’s here right now because if Alex thinks herself into one more crisis she might die. “Let me up.”

So she lets her up.

It’s remarkably similar to that night, just with more square footage and less alcohol. They’re sitting across from one another in this state of post-game crash, trying not to go crazy over the choices that they made, that they needed to make. Alex feels the same itchiness, the same desire to tear her hair out, but this time she knows what Bradley’s lips feel like and can’t help but want more. Always more with her, always higher ambitions.

Bradley’s been considering her for the last twenty minutes while they went through the rolodex of acceptable topics and finally, when the police sirens outside die down, she asks:   
  
“Do you think you’re ready now?”

“Yeah,” says Alex, instantly.

“Think about it.”

And some part of her did feel guilty about it, the first time; it felt like she was going against Bradley, like they were clawing at each other. Today felt like cohesion, working at something bigger, something more important - which is why she became a journalist in the first place, and Bradley made her remember that.

“Yeah,” she says, again. Bradley nods, gives a little half smile.

“Alright then.”

——

As happens almost every morning now, Alex jerks awake to her phone vibrating its way straight off the bedside table. It’s the peppy default ringtone she never got around to changing and it grates on her so much she almost makes to throw the damn thing across the room until she comes back to herself and realizes her bed smells like Bradley.

It’s not just that, either; Alex is being  _ cuddled  _ and soft snores are coming from somewhere to her left, and she hasn’t done any of that since maybe three years into her marriage, when she came to the conclusion that she preferred to sleep by herself no matter what. She has her preferences about pillow temperatures and, alright, she likes to spread out, and none of that actually matters right now because she doesn’t even mind sharing when she’s sharing with Bradley Jackson… which can’t be what’s happening, not really.

“What the fuck,” says Bradley, groaning into the pillow as the phone continues to ring. Alex swears, sits up with the sheets tucked around her and hits ‘accept’ without checking, if only to make the noise stop.

“Yeah,” she croaks, slides a hand through her hair and fails to focus on the call. Bradley burrows into her waist and breathes hotly there, eventually works up the courage to follow it up with a gentle kiss. She must not be all awake yet but Alex’s heart is hammering and she reaches blindly down, settles her hand into Bradley’s hair in an attempt to get her to stop.

_ This isn’t happening,  _ is all she can think. The guy on the phone is telling her about his network, how they’d love to have her do the Alex Levy Show weekdays at seven so she can shed light on touchy subjects like workplace assault and women’s rights, and fuck if she isn’t the wrong girl for that but what she ends up saying is “Okay, I’ll get back to you.”

She’s remembering in little snippets. Bradley at the door with messy hair and a show smile, Bradley’s tongue in her mouth against the kitchen island. Her back hurts a little; that must be why.

The more explicit parts come gradually and the sudden, sharp memory of something sensational Bradley did with her fingers makes her thighs clench together in sympathy. She’s forced to confront the truth of it now that the call is over, now that there are no more distractions. She kind of wishes there was some regret there but all she’s really feeling is paper thin and vulnerable.

“Round two?”

Bradley looks hopeful and a little bit childlike and Alex just stares at her, phone in hand. 

“Bradley,” she whispers, and Bradley must finally see how  _ terrified _ she is because everything in her goes soft and she comes closer, coos an  _ oh, baby.  _ It’s just them then, just Bradley in New York light. Alex’s eyes film over.

“Listen,” says Bradley. Her accent’s so much thicker when she’s just waking up; Alex never knew that before. “I know this is hard and I know you’re goin’ through it but I really need you not to tell me last night was a mistake. We’re adults and we thought it through like adults. Whatever else happens we can deal with.”

“It wasn’t a mistake,” says Alex, without hesitation. “I’m still scared shitless.”

Bradley laughs, low and syrupy, and laces their fingers together.

“Fuck, me too. I mean, me as well. Sex really isn’t as good of a fix as some people say. What was that call about, anyway?”

"Oh, I don't- hold on."

Out of habit, Alex tilts the phone toward her again, and it lights up with a text. It’s just the one, all lowercase:

Lizzy Craig:  _ proud of you. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> coming next chapter (in 2022 if we're being realistic): alex reconciles with lizzy, the gorls get their new show on the road and learn how to navigate being co anchors in a ReLaTiOnShIp!


End file.
